


One Choice of Many

by GhostoftheMotif



Category: Dresden Files - Jim Butcher
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-30
Updated: 2011-12-30
Packaged: 2017-10-28 12:15:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/307783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GhostoftheMotif/pseuds/GhostoftheMotif
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gard makes her case. Murphy listens.</p><p>Written for the dresdenficathon on lj.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Choice of Many

**Author's Note:**

  * For [OracleGlass](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OracleGlass/gifts).



I’d met few mortals of the same caliber as Karrin Murphy. She took strength and boldness to new heights and wielded them with not only intelligence, but with honor. They were qualities that could be seen in the way she held herself, in her battle-refined tactics, in her very expression. Now, in a span of time when so many lives were unknowingly dependent on her, the setting sun broke through the curtains of my hotel room to cast that same expression in orange light as her hair spilled in loose spirals over my pillow.

The soft skin of her thighs brushed against my wrist with each roll of her hips, and I felt the muscles of her stomach quiver as my tongue traced a scar beholden to the night a fomor had nearly gutted her. I glanced up, caught the contours of ribs and breasts in their sharp rise and fall, the spill of light on her collar bone, the way her eyes shifted downwards from the ceiling above to lock on mine. Her fingers dislodged from my hair, crept down my arm to find my wrist, to guide me further in.

There was a laughing shine to her eyes then that was a twin to the one that had scorched across her face when she had cut through ghouls at my side that same morning, and that memory drew my body up on lifeblood hooks to kiss her. She met me halfway, mouth warm and sweet with mead that only warriors were fit to taste, had bled to earn, and all the while, those eyes never left mine. I could feel my magic hum beneath my skin as she shifted to straddle me, the sheets sliding from my shoulders as I straightened. I held her to me as she moved, utterly taken in by the rarity she represented, fearlessness and beauty, a brilliant mind and a weapon.

Her teeth closed on the crook of my shoulder as she stiffened and the shudder ran through her, lanced through her voice and into my body. My hand cupped the base of her skull as she came down, but she twisted abruptly and toppled us over, heads nearly hanging off the foot of the bed. It tore a laugh from me, and I felt her smile against my throat. Without a word, she settled against me, arms bent between our chests, my arms pulling us together. Not for the first time, I was astounded by the gesture of trust; her back was to the door, and her she was, naked and without her gun in ready reach, being held by the employee of a man who until a recent time had been nothing save an enemy. Such a curiosity of a mortal.

“You make a convincing argument.” That smile was in her voice, something I hadn’t heard from her in recent memory. When she pulled back enough to look at me, her eyes were very blue. “But not enough of one to change my mind.”

The corner of my mouth turned upwards. “This wasn’t my argument.” Although, once the words left me, I realized it may have been simpler to pretend that it was.

For a brief moment, I thought she was preparing herself to leave. Her expression closed off and acquired the professional edge I’d grown used to seeing on her face, and distance formed between our bodies where there had been none. Instead she sighed, curved an arm beneath her head, and faced me again. “Go on, then. This is a set-up for a personal story, right? Why and how you became a Valkyrie, the many great feats you’ve accomplished, etc…”

“That is part of the traditional sales pitch, yes…” I ran my knuckles over her hip. She shifted into the touch, but her body was tensed. The sudden change in demeanor gave me pause. If I were honest with myself, I didn’t need to ask to know what had prompted it. In the aftermath of Dresden’s death, Murphy had grown accustomed to people approaching her with personable smiles and dark intentions. She had made compromises where she had never before considered. If she thought I was here to undermine her original decision… The thought tipped ice into my veins. “Karrin, if you don’t wish to have this conversation, we needn’t. I have no ulterior motives. I am not here under the condition that you accept my offer. It certainly isn’t why I’ve come to bed with you.”

She was silent for several breaths, and then, “I know.” And low, level, “So talk.”

Out in the hallway a door slammed shut, and muffled voices filtered in through the walls, strained in anger. The Accords meeting wasn’t until the following night, but the assembled parties were preemptively at one another’s throats. I wasn’t concerned. I’d warded my quarters, and the quarters of my employer, to within an inch of their lives; quite closer, in fact. Beyond that, my axe was within arm’s reach at the bed’s side. I challenged any being to make an attempt on my life in the span of time it would take me to reach it.

In turn, I watched Murphy’s eyes reflexively reacquaint themselves with the exits, the location of her sig and glock, and her relation to them, before returning to my face.

When they did, I considered my well-used stock of beginnings, and settled on an unorthodox one. “I was dying.”

It was a mark of the level-headedness of the woman in front of me that all I received was an arched eyebrow in response.

I breathed a sigh at my own dramatics, but continued down the same thread nonetheless. “The village in which I’d been born, raised, and begun a family, was located on the coast. It was attacked from the sea. I fought to defend it, just as I had done numerous times before, but on that occasion…” I rolled a shoulder, exhibiting a wide scar, the last vestige of my mortal life. “I was struck from behind.” The old memory, of losing sight of the world from behind a spray of my own blood, no longer held the same pain it once had. “The snow covered nearly my entire body mere moments after I fell, and I knew that I would die.”

Murphy ran her fingers down the scar with a pensive expression.

I caught her hand, held it against my chest. “Someone disagreed. Unbeknownst to me, I had a patron. My life had drawn the attention of a Valkyrie, and through her, Vadderung. I was not meant to die in that moment.”

“They can just make choices like that? Whose time it is to die?” There was a bitter note to the question.

“No, that is not the way in which our power works,” I answered calmly. “In my case, it was simply a truth. For all appearances, I was bleeding out, but I didn’t carry an aura of death.”

“So they took you.”

I showed a smile that rarely came to life outside of a battlefield. “She stood above me, offered her hand, and told me to stand and continue the fight. I did. My new sister took my family as her own, and together we drove away the invaders.” I still could not recall the axe being pulled from where it had embedded in my shoulder and chest, could not remember being healed by that sudden flux of magic, but I could remember Borga hanging a severed head from the roof of my home; Borga’s grin had been wide, her blonde hair matted with blood. “And this is one reason of many that I believe you are suited to my profession. For as long as my family, my bloodline, has lived in that village, I have been its protector. Now it is a city, my blood remains there, and I am still its protector when it has need of me. Vadderung loves mortals, loves those under his command. My contracts represent my first priority, but they are not my only priority. He allows me, and my sisters, that freedom. As long as you can reconcile immortality, you can provide the same for Chicago.”

Her hand curled around mine, grip tight. She was evaluating my expression, weighing her choices. “I’ve given up a lot of things while looking for more power to fight back.” The _but I don’t think this can be one of them_ went unsaid.

“The offer will remain open,” I murmured. “Should you change your mind…”

With a flicker of a smile, she lifted her hand to tuck my hair behind my ear before twining our fingers together again. “Sigrun, if I change my mind, you’ll be with me at the time.”

My desire was to answer _then I hope to be with you often_ , but I refrained. We had put voice to… a fondness for one another, several classes beyond camaraderie, but there was a point at which those confessions ran the risk of compromising the cold logic we needed to employ. Karrin Murphy was my friend; I wanted her as a lover. The truth of the matter, however, was that she remained at odds with my client. The truth of the matter was that she may not live long. She was a warrior; there were times when that was not enough. And yet if she became a Valkyrie---

“Do me a favor?”

It was my turn to arch an eyebrow.

“Get one of your knives out and do something about my hair. It’s too long. I want it gone.”

I was only jolted by the change in subject for a moment before recognizing it for what it was: she trusted me enough to have bring a knife so close, and she wasn’t simply tossing me a scrap of meat. She’d complained of it during our last few sparring sessions. She did want it cut.

Ensuring that she could see each movement I made, I drew out the knife from where it was tucked between the mattresses, and gave a soft, contented sigh at the brief flare of welcoming warmth from the runes as they brushed my skin.

Thirty minutes later we sat in my suite’s bathroom, laughing with what remained of my stash of mead in hand, and relayed stories of the trick to battling atop a many-legged horse, the joys of nighttime motorcycle rides down secluded highways, and the merits of friendships and partnerships, as strands of gold fell to the floor.


End file.
